


The Trickster Touch

by Residesatshamecentral



Series: A Plague On Both Your Houses [7]
Category: SS-GB (TV)
Genre: Cold War, Espionage, Reunited and It Feels So Good, bespoke spy stuff, implied preslash, plots within plots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-04
Updated: 2018-12-04
Packaged: 2019-09-07 04:25:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16847083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Residesatshamecentral/pseuds/Residesatshamecentral
Summary: Archer and Huth are reunited, but there are dangers in the shadows.





	The Trickster Touch

The conversation had died down, leaving an awkward silence. Through the huge French windows, the moon looked down on them through a veil of cloud, the red flash of the lighthouse returning every few seconds like a warning notice. Maugham downed the last of his drink and put out his cigarette in the marble ashtray. “I think we have discussed everything we need to” he said. “You will forgive an old man, gentlemen, for bidding you good night. It’s so good to have you here, Douglas. With things heating up, I really do need an assistant. No need to leave!” he added as Archer stood hurriedly “The servants will bring you anything you want, just let them know when you feel like leaving. Good night.” The door closed behind him.

“You can’t fault his hospitality” said Huth “if you don’t mind the vague feeling of being fattened for the feast.”

“It’s a type you meet a lot of in certain circles” said Archer. “I find it’s best just to enjoy the wine and refuse to play cards at all costs. Nine times out of ten you leave having had a wonderful time, and don’t later wonder if you signed your soul away.”

Huth allowed himself to look properly for the first time that evening. Archer had aged well in ten years. He still had the slightly gangling, boyish look as before, but he had filled out, and looked slightly weather-beaten. A small scar ran from his hairline to near the corner of one eye.

“How’s your son?” Archer smiled slightly. “Doing his first Police Training Course” he said. “My bosses have half an eye on him. His grades are very good.”

“Would you let him be recruited?”

“Over my dead body.”

“Exactly what I would say.”

“Any children of your own?”

“You read my file. You know.”

“I know what your file says. One thing I remember about you is that you never gave anything up that you were really determined keep.”

“Maybe, but I had my priorities wrong.”

“…Maybe. I can’t say. It’s not for me to say. But it would take more than MI6 to make you give up the fact of a child.”

Huth smiled, his eyes in the past. “No children” he said. “That is one regret for the list. The long list. I had no children. You keep them off your boy, Archer. How lucky you are to have him.”

Archer nodded. They fell silent for a moment, both men lost in their own thoughts. There was no tension in the air. It was as though the years between them had slipped away, taking them to some other past, where war and fear were absent and no cloud had been between them.

“How exactly did you come to work for them, anyway?” said Huth, pulling out of his reverie. “This is no place for Archer of the Yard surely, the bold defender of British law.” Archer wondered if sarcasm was an incurable reflex for Huth, but let it pass.

“It was a strange business” he said. “After you and Springer returned to Berlin, I found myself being used on and off by the resistance as their man in Kellerman’s circle. There was some fairly murky goings-on-”

“Oh, there would be” murmured Huth.

“- And I was asked a few times to do the sort of job I…well it was for Queen and country. I’m not allowed to talk about it. When the occupation was over, I was shoved, by Mayhew, into MI6 right through the door marked ‘No Choice’. This was during that tricky period when the new government was finding it’s feet. Since then…it’s all for Britain. But Mayhew is…”

“A gold medal winning, show-stealing, commendation-worthy, shady little swine?”

“Yep.”

“They all are. Maugham is.”

“I have to disagree with you there. Maugham is better than most of them, as far as I’ve seen.”

“What makes you say that?”

“He wrote a formal letter protesting the way that they’re putting you at risk. He doesn’t want your blood on his hands, or anyone’s. He’s from a time when spying was a gentle sort of affair – or gentler anyway. He’s not used to putting his agent’s at risk, let alone with people who would torture them to death on a suspicion. He hates this.”

Huth looked at him hawkishly. “You grew up since we last met” he said. “You could barely see beyond your own nose, once. You were practically tripping over terrorist plots.”

“When you’re wilfully blind, you tend to bump into your problems” replied Archer, evenly

“You knew I had twigged to the game?”

“I guessed, I didn’t know. And frankly, I’m not clear on what they really want. There are whole sections of the file I’m not allowed access to.”

“Of course there are. Maughm half admitted it, Douglas. MI6 is divided within itself and they don’t want to say so out loud. I bet there is one faction handling us, and trying to hide us from the others.”

“You’re speculating.”

“I’m not. Keeping information carefully protected is one thing, Maugham is used to that, but there are alarm bells going off in his withered old skull and that man has very good instincts. He ranted at me earlier, Archer – or as close to ranting as he could get. He knows something is very wrong with this situation. ‘If we all on the same side’ he said ‘it would be Chess’. He knows this is factionalism and he doesn’t like it at all.”

“That could be a disaster.”

“It is a disaster. We are sitting in the middle of a disaster-in-waiting. Isn’t it liberating?”

Archer stood up. “I think I’ll call it a night.”

He was halfway to the door when Huth called out to him “It was good to know you remembered me, Archer. It was good of you to care, let alone to come. I know when you read that file, you knew it too.”

The door was closing as he Huth murmured “and I’m sorry you didn’t stay out of this. You still have a future…”


End file.
